It was a great place. The owner was a local man, and he really knew all about beading and making lovely things. And he enjoyed teaching people, and it was fun. And you know what?

After some months, and a valiant struggle, the owner closed the doors.

It was a bummer, but not a feeling that was so rare, because I had experienced this before, seeing small businesses that I loved and enjoyed close their doors. A health-food Mexican food restaurant here in town. A bagel shop. An art gallery specializing in Western art and landscapes.

Bummer.

Don’t you hate seeing a local business close because they can’t make ends meet?

Why Local Businesses Fail

And the deal is this… usually, it’s because they don’t know how to market their goods and services. For example, I know a lot of musicians. Many are brilliant and talented, and they create the most beautiful music. But most of those do not know how to market, so they struggle endlessly with trying to make a living doing what they love.

And the same for a barbershop, a petstore, a bookkeeping service, a tarot-card reader, an expresso cart, or a small botique.

As someone who has been doing marketing for small local businesses — my own and others’ — for 40 years I really don’t like to just sit back and let this happen.

So I’ve created a free report called “Nine Free Ways to Get New Customers.”

I’d like to give you a copy. And I invite you to share it with your friends, send it to relatives who run small businesses in other towns, and in general get it into the hands of small businesses who need it.

Although the online world is remarkably similar to the physical universe in the principles of marketing, the way you apply them is quite different and most local business owners never figure this out, because it’s not so obvious, and it has a long learning curve.

Please download the following special report, and also share the link to this article with your friends on Facebook, twitter, and any e-mail list that you have.(If you don’t have an e-mail list, buy my book “Marketing Online, Clear and Simple” on Amazon today, and learn why you should have an e-mail list. In the meantime…

Download your special report here. Right-Click and Save to Your Computer –

Nine Free Ways to Get New Customers

Arthur Cronos’ Book Teaches Using Internet for Business

[reprinted with permission]

“A Siskiyou County man recently published a book that tells local businesses how they can harness the internet to make more income.

“Arthur Cronos’s ‘Marketing Online Clear and Simple’ gives detailed instructions that are not only easy to follow, but interesting to read.

“The book also includes a free video series that demonstrates click by click how to do everything he explains.

“Cronos has worked in sales and advertising for more than 40 years. As the owner of CopyDragon Business Writing Services, Cronos now specializes in online marketing.

“His book outlines three steps which he says will help local businesses make money online.

[read more]

Since so many customers do a search of local business before visiting or calling — and this trend is accelerating with the growth of smartphones — it’s become *essential* to have a location online. Even if it consists of nothing more than What You Offer, some prices or a FAQ, and contact information, you *must* be there, because to the searchers, if they can’t find you … you just don’t exist.

The Affordable Websites service is something I worked out that will do just that.

Get a Website for $99, 3-Day Turnaround

It’s just that simple. Check out WebNova Affordable Websites, and share it with your friends.

And, for those people who need a simple solution like this, I also created a simple one-page summary that describes what works today in online marketing.

Read it here:

Marketing Online on One Page

Most people search online, even when they’re looking for a LOCAL business … especially with the ongoing tidal wave of smartphone use.

Smartphone Consumers Search a Lot

Statistics from the Google report “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” 2011:

• 95% of smartphone users have searched for local information
• 61% of users call a business after searching …
• … and 59% visit the location
• 90% of these people act within 24 hours

The Three Waves of Google

Google, and other search engines have generally gone through three modes of operation, all with the intent of delivering up to the searchers the information that’s most likely to satisfy –

1. In the beginning, google simply used title, keywords and meta description .. but it was subject to abuse, and became completely unreliable as the sharpsters got wise and gamed the system
2. Then google began to rely upon inbound links, thinking that if external sites thought the current site was important, then that was a ‘vote’ and this worked until sharpsters got smarter and smarter about how to game the system by manipulating external sites
3. And in 2011, and in 2012, google is turning toward two other things as a way of gathering votes, on the expectation that these new ‘vote-gathering’ approaches will be harder to manipulate

The Increase of Mobile Phones

Right now, there are about 1.25 billion computers in the world … and 3 billion cellphones. And the trend within the cellphone users is to migrate overwhelmingly to smartphones. By 2013 there will be more people searching via smartphone than via normal desktops and laptops. (Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Internal Data, 2011; Cisco, 2011)

Since Google’s prime directive is to make happy the searchers, Google is already rewarding folks who have a specialized mobile site, and penalizing those who don’t. People who buy Google’s ‘adwords’ advertising now pay less for their clicks if they have a mobile site, and pay more for their clicks when they don’t. And you can bet your bootie that search results are working the same way … ESPECIALLY google’s mobile search results, which is growing in importance every single day.

The Increase of Social Marketing

As described in my book (“Marketing Online, Clear and Simple,” available on Amazon), making money using the internet only happens when three essential steps are done.

If you are a local business marketing online, here are the essential steps: First is having a location online, a website. Second is some METHOD of engaging visitors in a conversation … otherwise, statistics tell us they visit once, and then never ever return again. And third is a METHOD of increasing traffic to the site.

Guess what?

Social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Digg, and Redit all provide a METHOD of engaging visitors into a conversation, and they all provide a METHOD of increasing traffic to your site.

And social site usage is booming.

The Rise of Local-Business Online Methods

Most local business owners are too busy handling the alligators of daily operation to engage in the rather long and changing learning curve of effectively learning online methods that actually work. Some of them “get a website” but never do the other two essential steps, and then wonder why “the website” doesn’t make a dime.

However, this is going to shift a lot in 2012.

The increase in smartphone usage will provide more local-business searches. The increase in social marketing, including people who run local businesses, and the local “chatter” from their customers … will increase search methods leading to greater foot-traffic into local businesses.

Further, the hijacking of first page search results by online sharpsters will become more difficult, and less profitable. That business model usually amounts to the sharpster seizing google results with the intent of grabbing the results, and then sending the buyer to the seller’s website, while extracting some profit in doing so. That model will become more difficult.

However, the “local” searches for a local business marketing online, such as “divorce attorney in pittsburgh,” will still be effective, and the rise in smartphone searches will make this kind of search more effective. Google development of Google places and local search results will support the accuracy of this kind of search.

The Result: A Boom for Local Businesses

And this represents two opportunities …

• If you are a local business, it will be worth your while to (a) get an effective website, (b) create a conversation system, (c) engineer a traffic-building system.
• If you are an online consultant or web-builder or marketing expert, you will most help your clients with their local business marketing online if you can help them with the “Three Step Marketing” Formula (described in my book), and especially with traffic and promotions using a mobile site, a facebook business page, and the new QR-Codes to snag even more smartphone users.

Is this only for big businesses? Or folks with lots of money?

Not really. Sure, big businesses will have web-gurus, but that’s unchanged from the past, and LOCAL searches won’t be much impacted. Local businesses will either have more money and less time to spend, like attorneys and doctors and hardware stores, and they can hire out the work … or they’ll be smaller and have less money and more time for smoozing on Facebook, like a musician and a hair salon and a local coffee house.

Need Help with your Local Business?

Contact me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session.

.

Check out the cool graphics on our Facebook business page –

http://facebook.com/CopyDragon

What is a QR Code?

The odd-looking graphic is called a QR code, or Quick-Response code. The graphic can store various kinds of information, contains some error-correction information, and is designed to scan easily and quickly, and can be oriented in any direction for that purpose. (A little different than the bar-codes on cans of peas at the grocery store!) This leads directly to making how to create qr code promotions very useful.

Because of the proliferation of cellphones and the wide availability of scanning ‘apps’ — I use ‘Scan Life’ on my android phone — the QR Code is becoming immensely popular, as a way of providing information very quickly. For example, scanning a QR code with your cellphone can quickly insert into the phone:

1. A phone number, ready for dialing
2. A website address, automatically loading
3. Name, address, and phone, inserted into ‘contacts’
4. A bookmark
5. A wifi location
6. A text message
7. An email address, ready to send
8. A location
9. .. and more!

How to Create QR Code Promotions

The QR Code can store quite a bit of information, and is growing in popularity for promotional purposes. For example, you can now embed an entire email-capture system into (or behind) a single QR code, and because the QR code is a picture, you can use this system anywhere you can place a picture.

That means: on the web, on your business card, on your restaurant’s menu, in a newspaper advertisement, on a window sign, on your stationery, on postcards, in the yellow pages, on your Facebook business page … and the list goes on.

If you would like to employ the power of QR codes and create unique, popular promotions that people love to use … contact CopyDragon.

And to make it really easy, just scan the following graphic with your cell phone …

When surfing with your mobile phone, just go to CopyDragon.com as usual. Our website will immediately know that you’re using a mobile device, and route you to an optimized website that’s easier to navigate on the phone.

==0==

Note to google (only):  the CopyDragon webwriter’s mobile site is located at http://copydragon.com/mob/

If you want to attract customers, the answer’s a no-brainer.

Websites are perhaps the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for local, owner-operated businesses. Yes, every retailer needs one. Every dentist, lawyer, accountant and minister needs one. Every café, restaurant, coffee shop and nightclub needs one. Every wholesale supply company needs one.

I’m not suggesting that all these businesses need to actually transact business online. I’m only saying that everyone listed in yesterday’s Yellow Pages needs to also be available on the internet today–it’s where your customers expect to find you.

If you’re thinking you might not be able to afford putting up a website, think again. For a simple website, a budget of $2,000 to $5,000 for construction and $100 to $400 for monthly maintenance and updates should cover it. Robust sites with streaming video, opt-in subscriber functions and other, more complicated features can run between $12,000 and $20,000 for construction and $500 to $2,000 for monthly maintenance and updates.

How a Website Helps a Local Business

Properly constructed, a website allows your prospects to gather the information they need from the privacy of their own computer monitors. What are the questions your salespeople answer virtually every day? And how, exactly, would your best salesperson phrase those answers on his or her best day? This is the information that needs to be available 24/7 on your site.

Think of your site as a relationship deepener, a half step between your advertising and your front door. Do you suppose it’s easier to convince customers to visit your web site or to convince them to get in their car, drive to your store, park that car and walk in your door?

The internet is heaven on earth for the 49 percent of our population who are introverted. That’s because introverts strongly prefer to gather information anonymously. They’re unlikely to dial your phone number, except as a last resort. Even more unlikely is that they’ll choose to walk into your store and engage a salesperson. Introverts aren’t necessarily shy–they simply like to gather all the facts before they put themselves in a position where they’ll likely be asked to answer questions. Forty-nine percent of your customers strongly prefer to know what they’re coming to buy before they walk in your door. And even the extroverted 51 percent of your target market will appreciate an informative site that functions as an expert salesperson during all those hours you’re not open for business.

Don’t think for a moment that your customers aren’t already online. Several times a month, I speak to groups of at least several hundred people. And I always ask, “How many of you have used a search engine within the past seven days to research a product or service that you were considering purchasing?” I raise my own hand as soon as the question is finished. The hands raised in response have never been less than 85 to 90 percent of the crowd.

The most interesting of these situations happened about a year ago in Las Vegas. I was the keynote speaker for a trade organization whose 1,600 delegates had been gathered from around the world. I was there to deliver a speech on the keys to more effective advertising. The trade organization published a full-color magazine for their members, and prior to this conference, the executive council had been complaining to me privately about the high cost of publishing and shipping that magazine. I was waiting offstage while the emcee introduced me when the chairman leaned over and whispered, “Almost all our membership is over 55 years of age, so you probably don’t want to mention the internet.” Just then, the emcee finished his jabber and barked, “Roy H. Williams!” I opened my mouth and asked this roomful of oldsters, “How many of you have used a search engine within the past seven days to research a product or service that you were considering purchasing?” You guessed it, about 95 percent.

I think maybe that chairman is still standing offstage with his mouth open.

Roy William’s is Entrepreneur.com’s “Advertising” columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads. Roy is also the author of numerous books on improving your advertising efforts, includingThe Wizard of Ads and Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope visit in the woods?

Of course they do!

They learn from search results, user reviews, ratings, text ads, image ads, news headlines, forums, videos and even good old-fashioned official brand websites.

It’s All about the “Conversation”

They learn and decide in what Google now calls “the Zero Moment of Truth,” that moment when a potential customer is first exposed to marketing and research information about the products and services that *you* want to sell.

One way to dominate this moment (or the conversation) is to take as many places as you can on the front page of Google, Bing and Yahoo, because a single listing usually doesn’t cut it. and certainly just having your business name high on Google is often valueless, because all too  often NONE of your non-customers go searching for your business name, because they’ve never heard of you.

What Works?

Something approaching total domination would work pretty good.

That is to say, getting your “natural” listing on Google, video, Google Places, reviews, social media and directory listings all over the place. That is, an ongoing ‘conversation’ going on about your product or service and you control it.

Whoever is getting ‘talked’ about the most (positively) usually sells the most!

That’s why Amazon outsells Borders, and Borders outsells Henry’s bookstore in Des Moines.

• Did you know that 70% of Americans now report they regularly examine online product reviews before making a purchase? (And, about your business, how are your online reviews? Uh, do you have any online reviews? Think it might be a good idea to get some?)
• Did you know that 79% of consumers report they use a Smartphone to help with shopping? (Is your website optimized to display differently for a Smartphone visitor, so they can get around and actually read what you have to say?)
• Did you know that, last year, for the first time, the number of cell phones in the world became greater than the number of computers in the world? (So what does that say about how your buyers will pre-research this year and next year? Would you like to be a part of it?)

Did you know that 83% of mothers reveal that they see television commercials and then they research online for things that interest them? (So here’s the bottom line: Are you on page one of the major search engines?)

Want to OWN The Conversation?

The fact is, for any business — local business, nationwide business, online business — the most powerful way to get more customers and increase your income is by simply “owning the conversation” in your area.

Want to?

Call me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session to see how CopyDragon webwriters might be able to help you to conquer the world.

Check out his persuasive video about the “Zero Moment of Truth,” here –

Now, quite possibly you may wonder how this might affect your business. Or maybe you’re stumped about what you can do as a practical matter to take advantage of this idea. After all your business is your business. You’re not in the marketing online business.

Two Ways I Can Help

1. Get my new book, “Marketing Online, Clear and Simple, for Local Business.” It’s already on Amazon as a Kindle Edition, and Barnes & Noble as a Nook e-reader book. It will appear as a print title on Amazon soon, and you can get it online as a pdf at my “book site” at http://marketingonlineclearandsimple.com. With the book come a complete series of detailed “how-to” videos which will lead you through the essential steps, click by click.
   ..
2. Call me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session, to see whether CopyDragon Webwriters might be able to provide a complete “done for you” service. You see, my business *is* online marketing. My musical instruments sell around the world, through internet marketing, for example, and I’ve helped dozens of clients to get on the cyberspace fast track.

Those Rascally Customers of Yours

When someone hears about your product or your service, as you darn well know, often their very first reaction is ‘Let me search online for it’. Fact.

It’s simply the way people live and learn and make buying decisions today. They use review sites, read online copy, hear referrals from Facebook friends, and more. It’s what they do at home, in the office, and on their cell phones too.

Lots of times they want to see a video. Seeing is believing. So it behooves you to *be seen.*

Don’t know how? Nope?

No problem. I know how.

Get the Book, or Call me …

Get the book here:

http://amazon.com, and simply search for “Arthur Cronos” (my name)
http://bn.com, and simply search for “Arthur Cronos” (my name)
http://marketingonlineclearandsimple.com

Call me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session here:

(530) 938-1100 (pacific time zone)

See you online!

In many cases, the deal is … your business either adapts … or dies. I’ve had a couple of businesses die, where I failed to find a way to adapt to the changing market. I’ve felt the pain, first hand.

The search behemoth, Google, has published an interesting view about marketing. I’d never heard of this before. It’s called the “Zero Moment of Truth.” This idea came from Proctor & Gamble, the soap barons, who know a thing or two about marketing. They apparently came up with this idea in 2005.

Here’s what the “Zero Moment of Truth” means …

What is the Zero Moment of Truth?

This phrase is based on the idea of the first moment of truth (FMOT) which is when a consumer comes across a shelf full of product and makes the decision on which to buy.

In that year, in a forward to a book called Lovemarks, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, A. G. Lafley said this:

“The best brands consistently win two moments of truth.

“The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a consumer decides whether to buy one brand or another.

“The second occurs at home, when she uses the brand — and is delighted, or isn’t.”

I Can Relate. Can You?

I’ve had this experience. The moment at the store. And then the moment at home.

And I’ve talked to my customers, in a number of businesses I’ve run over the last 40 years. And I’ve heard them report these same moments.

Do you relate?

Evolution Today: What’s Changed?

Well, something has changed. The fact is, in many cases, I don’t go wandering down the aisles of the store. At least, that’s not my *first* action. In many cases, my first action is … searching online.

Have *you* had this experience? Searching online before visiting the store? Or searching online before buying online?

I’ll bet big money you’ve had this experience.

What Does This Tell Us?

It tells us that there’s a moment *before* the so-called “First Moment of Truth!”

It’s telling us about a new critical moment of decision. Google claims — and I believe them — that this happens before consumers even get into the store. Well, doh! Yup. Observation confirms this claim.

And whether you sell services or some product, local or online — a roofing contractor or an Amazon author selling books or a barber in your town or a traveling hypnotherapist — in many cases, your customers’ first impression — and quite possibly their final decision — will be made in this Zero Moment of Truth.

Want help? CopyDragon can Help

Want to take ownership of that Moment?

Or rather do nothing, and just let some competitor have it?

It’s up to you.

But if you want to have more control over your own destiny, over the forward movement of your business, both for greater prosperity and for ensuring better survival, then contact me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session.

Together, let’s see what can open up for you.

– Arthur

PS:  Watch for the next article. I’ve got a great video which illustrates this concept, OK?